← Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning
Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning
Can AI Personalize Your Brain Health? Inside Brain.One's Protocols with Thoryn Stephens
00:43:46
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- [00:00]
Thorin Stephens
Foreign.
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Andrea Samadi
Welcome Back to season 15 of the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast. I'm Andrea Samadhi and it's here that we bridge the science behind social and emotional learning, emotional intelligence, and practical neuroscience so we can create measurable improvements in well being, achievement, productivity and results. Now, when we launched this podcast seven years ago, it was driven by a question that I'd never been taught to ask. Not in school, not in business, and not in life. And the question was, if results matter, and they matter now more than ever before, how exactly are we using our brain to make these results happen? Now, most of us weren't taught what to do. Very few of us were taught how to think under pressure, or how to regulate our emotions, or how to sustain our motivation, or even how to produce consistent results without burning out. And that question led me to a deep exploration of the mind, brain, results connection, and how neuroscience applies to everyday decisions, to our conversations and our performance. And that's why this podcast exists. Each week we bring you leading experts to break down complex science and then translate it into practical strategies that we can all apply immediately. And we've been reviewing past episodes for the past two seasons. But every now and then when I see someone doing something innovative, I want to learn more. And today's guest sits right at the intersection of biology, AI and human potential. For today's episode number 386, we're joined by Thorin Stephens. He's a scientist, a molecular biologist, a data visionary, and the founder and CEO of Brain One. Brain One is an AI powered health optimization platform and is designed to transform scientific research into personalized actionable protocols using real time data from wearables like Apple Health, the Oura Ring and Garmin. Now, instead of generic wellness advice, Brain1 analyzes research literature and biometric inputs to build precision microhabits. It targets sleep architecture, metabolic health, our cognitive performance, stress regulation and even dementia risk reduction. Its protocols are used by high performing athletes, executives and longevity focused individuals seeking not just better performance, but long term brain resilience. From insomnia reduction to high altitude performance to evidence based dementia prevention. And it was inspired by the Lancet 2020 framework. Brain 1 is attempting something ambitious to make human optimization measurable, systematic and scalable. So today we're going to explore, can AI truly personalize our brain health? What are the biological bottlenecks that limit our human potential? And what does prevention look like before decline begins, let's welcome Thoren Stevens to the podcast. Thoren Stevens, welcome to the Neuroscience meets SEL podcast. Here we Focus on measurable results. And you're talking to someone who's got a wearable. And I measure everything. So I'm so excited to talk with you today.
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Thorin Stephens
Awesome. Some of my favorite topics.
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Andrea Samadi
Awesome. This is cool. This is cool. So I just want to go back to the very beginning because you, you've got quite a background. I listened to some of your earlier podcasts and I put links in the show notes for people that want to dive deep because you've, you've done a lot of things. Like the whole Ecuador experience was. Was interesting. I wouldn't have wanted to have been your teacher back then of running off the wild. But. But anyway, so if you could begin and just orient our listeners to maybe the problem you saw with human performance and brain health that made you say, you know, I'm gonna build a system to fix this problem. If we could start there.
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Thorin Stephens
Sure, yeah, that sounds great. So briefly, about my background. I'm a molecular biologist by training. Began my career in small molecule drug therapeutics working in biotech. We were the generation that sequenced the human genomes. This is roughly the early 2000s. Then I was like, oh, wait, what about the proteome and then the epigenome and everything else happening in that gene expression model? But very much a researcher at my core and molecular and cell biology. Then fast forward. I had a career in data science and also very much focused in the concept of measurement and measurement on a molecular level. And then also on a human basis. I was developing models essentially to optimize human behavior online. Really just focused in data science and measurement. It's really been the thread throughout my career. Ultimately, it was about two years ago, I was here in Colorado and I broke my clavicle. I am an aggressive human. I'm very athletic, and in the winters, we try to ski every day. And I, I was doing a backside spin and I, I slipped and. And ultimately heard the crack and I went into the Steadman Institute. And so Stedman is the number one orthopedic, arguably in the country. All the NFLers and NBA generally come here or in Vail. And long story short, you know, they did the X ray. The doctor's like, it's completely broken. See you in six weeks. And threw me a sling. And that was my recovery. And I. My recovery, I guess, protocol, quote, unquote. And I asked her, I was like, so this is it? And she's like, yep, see you in six weeks. And so I went back and I was just forming brain one at the time. And I Knew I wanted to do something around biological optimization. And I went to my network and I was like, guys, I broke my clavicle. You know, what do you recommend? And they're like, you know, bone broth, collagen, nutrition. And. And so I went on a. A protocol, basically, and followed a, you know, regimen that included, you know, these things, collagen supplements, and, like, big bison stews. And then I also did a localized pemf, P, E, M, F, if you're familiar with that modality. It's electrical magnetic current, essentially, through the bone. They think it helps stimulate growth and. And whatnot. And I was traveling, and so I was supposed to go back in six weeks. I went back in four. And she does the X ray, and she's like, oh, my gosh, you've completely healed. We've never seen a bone heal this fast. What have you been doing? And I was like, doctor, I've been focusing on my nutrition. And she looks me straight in the face and she's like, wow, we never would have thought of that. And that was one of those moments where I was like, okay, there's just absolutely something here. We need better. And when I talk about a protocol, it's really just a daily routine. It's things that you do, you know, you have one. Andrea, I'd love to hear about your morning protocol, but it's just, you know, when you wake up in the morning, what are those things that you check off the list, basically? And it can be highly structured or not, doesn't necessarily matter, as long as you're following some sort of a framework. And that was the beginning of Brain One.
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Andrea Samadi
Oh, I love it. I love it. This is. You're talking to the right person here, because I believe that, you know, your day, it starts that morning time. It's critical what you do 100%. So as soon as I saw your story, I thought, this is. This is. I jumped on this. I thought, I've got to figure out what you're doing. So. And we just did a review of Dr. Bruce Perry. He talks about. He did a book with Oprah, what Happened, you and Trauma in the Brain. And he talks about how we have unlimited or untapped potential within us. And so I just thought, what about you? Do you think we have potential within us? And maybe what are some things that prevent us from expressing some of our untapped potential?
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Thorin Stephens
Sure. Yeah. I think absolutely, we all have untapped potential. And certainly a impediment could be trauma from childhood and so forth. But I'm a big believer through the right modalities that we can deal with those traumas and ultimately transcend and supersede them. And I'm very much a human. There's a Japanese principle called kaizen of continual improvement. It's been applied in engineering, but I apply it to my daily life. And just that idea that you're continually improving and getting better, a reflection of that neurologically could be the concept of neurogenesis and the idea that we're still building new neural pathways all the way into our 60s and 70s. Your brain, much like your biology, is not static. You know, it's ultimately dynamic and changing, which goes back to that whole gene expression model in the beginning that, you know, we have a, we have a genetic blueprint that we're following. But, you know, the, the expression of your, your DNA to RNA to proteins can be dependent on things like your environment and your daily routine and, you know, the people you surround yourself with. So I think it's actually very empowering. And, you know, there's really no limit.
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Andrea Samadi
Do you focus on certain, you know, certain modalities like. So we all know sleep, nutrition. You've already talked about it. We have six that we have, you know, figured since the pandemic that we just came forward. What would be your top health?
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Thorin Stephens
So, yeah, we talk about nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress and then connection. Those are kind of our five pillars, which I'm sure are very similar to yours.
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Andrea Samadi
Yeah, we just had, you know, I've been talking to lots of people over the years and I asked people, you know, what am I missing? And someone said, you're missing the stress reduction part of it, you know, which, which is important for, you know, you talk about the morning. I, I'd like to know what is, what is your morning protocol? I'd love it.
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Thorin Stephens
Yeah, absolutely. So I am up quite early of late, it's been like 5am and I try to get direct sunlight as soon as possible. But we live in a valley here in Colorado and so the sun doesn't actually come over one of the mountains till about 9am so unfortunately, I don't get it first thing, but direct sunlight, circadian regulation is absolutely a pillar as well as hydration. I also have a biocharger here at the house, which is a giant Tesla coil. And there's different protocols. And so I'll do roughly a 30 minute biocharging session and, and then it depends on how much I'm training. I do some peptides and I do nad. So generally bpc. If I am like Heavily training and then nad I've been doing more recently intramuscular. And I do that about twice a week, sometimes three times a week. And, and then some level of prayer and connection, you know, whether it's to yourself, to the universe, whatever you'd like to call it. But that's general my core pillars. And then on the nutritional side, I mentioned hydration, but also high protein of some kind.
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Andrea Samadi
Love it. Now, can you tell me a bit more about the Tesla coil? Because I don't know what exactly.
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Thorin Stephens
Yeah, so it's this, you know, it's not even necessarily new, but so Nicholas Tesla, you know, really spearheaded the idea of using different types of frequencies essentially in healing. And this was actually pretty prevalent here in the United States through the, you know, 30s, I'd say. And then the FDA, they didn't outlaw it, but they, you know, didn't really. They kind of questioned the scientific credibility. And so a lot of the research then went to Germany and to Russia. But high level, it's. It's the idea that you have different resonant frequencies that can ultimately help humans, you know, under different morbidities or comorbidities or whatever it might be. I use it more for like, for things like brain activation is a protocol or it could be recovery. And you just basically sit in front of this thing and you can hold up a light bulb and it shows how much EMF is actually in the air. But yeah, we've seen some pretty interesting and very positive results using these types of frequency modalities. Another example your audience could try which are not super expensive is called pemf again pemf. And you can get a PEMF mat and you know, a couple hundred bucks roughly. I think now their prices have really come down quite a bit. And these are all things that you can now do at home.
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Andrea Samadi
Okay. So. So I'm thinking it might be similar to a Fisher Wallace brain stimulator type thing. It sounds very familiar like that you put on your head. And they have evolved over, over time. But it sounds very similar when you're talking about the background.
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Thorin Stephens
Yeah. Actually don't know the Fisher Wallace offhand,
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Andrea Samadi
but yeah, you put around it stimulates
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Thorin Stephens
something like it could be. So sometimes they're using magnets for that type of stuff. So like tc, ms, transcranial Magne and yeah, we also hear some really positive results around that too. And that's actually FDA approved.
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Andrea Samadi
Okay.
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Thorin Stephens
So, you know, a lot of these things I come out of the. Also the world of triathlon. So I began doing ironmans when I was in my 30s and it was through that idea of, you know, optimizing biology, using data and a lot of these things that we used to do in triathlon no one had ever heard of. You know, I like red light. I remember 10 years ago, you know, one of my buddy Dean, he had a red light on his knee. We're like, what are you doing, Dean? He's like mitochondrial stimulation, like, you know, 10 plus years ago, things like cold plunging and, you know, now these are available and, you know, more and more people are just incorporating that into their daily protocol or daily routine.
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Andrea Samadi
Oh, I love this. This is really cool. I've, I've, I've tried everything. You interview lots of people, you get different ideas and, and I, around the same time, like maybe a bit earlier, I'm up in the 4 range and okay, yeah, turn on the sauna. So we've got awesome to help. And, and I find that because I measure everything. I used to hike every day and then as I was getting older, I started noticing inflammation showing up in blood tests. And then so I thought, what am I going to do? I can't keep the same amount of activity. I've got to slow down somewhere. So that's where I thought maybe the sauna could still continue to build that, the cardio, but not pounding on the joints.
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Thorin Stephens
Right?
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Andrea Samadi
Yeah, that's where that is.
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Thorin Stephens
Yeah, I, I would agree. And also just the, the sweat, you know, the catharsis. Another one of my microhabits in my routine, not as much in the morning, usually it's in the, in the evening. But I do hot Pilates three days a week here. And in that idea of again, you're combining and I do it with weights. So you have exercise, you have stretching, and we go all the way to probably zone four cardio, you know, burpees and, you know, all of the things. And, and then I sweat about 2 liters of water out and you know, whether it's sauna, whether it's, you know, it could be any type of modality where you're really sweating like that, but it's absolutely critical. And that catharsis is, I think, so important to your overall health.
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Andrea Samadi
Yeah, definitely.
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Thorin Stephens
Definitely.
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Andrea Samadi
It helps just everything as you're getting older, you got to find some treatments to keep us going and, you know, keep us young. And which brings me to the next question, because I started thinking about my brain health when I started, you know, really looking at, at the brain and neuroscience and how to keep our brains healthy. And I actually went and Got my brain measured at Daniel Amen's clinics, did a spectacle scan and I was really curious like what, what's he going to see? Yeah, and, and they, they said that, that it looked like I had the same brain pattern as someone who's sleep deprived. So it was, it was interesting to me. It looked like similar to traumatic brain injury. And, and so I was getting up super early, scrimping on sleep because in Arizona you gotta finish your exercise before eight or you're. Yeah, you're gone sleep. It was showing up on the brain.
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Thorin Stephens
Yeah.
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Andrea Samadi
Really curious about dementia and, but not everyone can do a brain scan and, and figure out, you know, am I tracking? So what would you say? You know, how would you talk to somebody who's 40 or 50? What interventions do you know of that we can start to figure out our brain health for dementia?
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Thorin Stephens
Yeah, that's a great question. So a couple points. One again, depending on the severity of the condition, you know, there's a, we, you know, we think of brain measurement as a spectrum and a lot of like the early brain research was done with qualitative surveys. You know, not even actually until, you know, the imaging and so forth progressed. We have a partnership with a group, they do eeg. So you know, we look at the resolution. You have QEEG, higher resolution. But EEG, they're called WABI, they're based here in Boulder, Colorado and you can go in and they have over 400 practitioners across the country, but they have these brain caps with 18 different nodes and you know, you can get a plethora of data just out of a 20 minute brain scan. And it's not super expensive, couple hundred dollars and, and at least then you'll know your baseline. So that's where we usually always begin to recommend is, you know, understanding what is that baseline. And there's different mechanisms of measurement. EEG is one. We have another kit that we, we utilize that has subjective as well as objective testing. So blood biomarkers that look at kind of the blueprint of the, the brain. So EPA, DHA, Omega 3, Omega 6, inflammatory climate. You can look at your biomarkers there. And then you can also look at your cognition, processing speed, executive function, and there's all kinds of measurement around that. Once we have an understanding of the baseline, then we can build a very structured plan around that. Then we have a number of partners that we work with across the country to do this stuff in person if needed. Then to answer your question, there's a beautiful paper that was written initially in 2017 it's a meta analysis. It's called the Lancet now it's called the Lancet 2024. It just came out again last year. Initially they had 12 essentially what we call microhabits or behavioral modifications. Changes we talked about earlier, my morning routine, I consider every one of those things a microhabit. And ultimately you can stack the microhabits and ultimately that becomes your daily protocol. In the case of Lancet 2020, they've or 2024, they've outlined 14 different, what are called modifiable risk factors or behaviors that you could change. And if humans were to follow these, then 30 to 40% of global dementia cases could be essentially reversed or at least supported. And whereas, you know, Alzheimer's, you have a genetic predisposition where you can't necessarily stop the onset of the disease, you can still help support the onset of the condition and the symptoms. Basically that's something that we really think a lot about is behavior modifications and the things that you can do. One example, it could be something like tbi, traumatic brain injury. And the impacts of what that means in your long term propensity for dementia or hearing loss is another big one. LDL cholesterol came out this last year. Social isolation is actually another very, very big one. We, you know, we talk a lot about that relative to connection and that could be connection to your community, it could be connection to God, spirit, whatever you want to call it, but the, just that ability to connect and you know, to have a community. And generally people that have that connection, purpose, you know, have a life expectancy of 10 to 12 years longer. So those are, you know, all really important. We consider them microhabits and you know, we try to evangelize people starting this stuff in their 30s and 40s and 50s, you know, not in their 60s and 70s as amyloid plaques. And you know, a lot of these tau proteins have basically progressed. So trying to start earlier and you know, making these kind of part of your day to day non negotiables.
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Andrea Samadi
So, so this is, this is good. So you've set us all up here. So you've had quite a background in research. You measure everything you've found a need for. You know, there's a gap here in health. You went and to the doctor and they, they, they missed it with you. They didn't diagnose you the way that, that your colleagues did when they gave.
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Thorin Stephens
Sure.
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Andrea Samadi
Right. And so now where are we with now? Bring in AI, because AI is a big part of brain one. How does AI now factor into what you've developed here?
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Thorin Stephens
Yeah, absolutely. We use AI in a couple different models. One is we use it actually for content and the ability to take a scientific paper like the Lancet 2020 and run it through and then summarize it and have it easily digestible. So we have a whole editorial model that we've built and we've, you know, we went from 50 to 100 to 1,000 scientific papers essentially, and then making that, you know, the content, again, easily digestible for my grandmother to read and understand. And so, you know, really making it more accessible, I guess I would say. And that's been kind of an integral part of the model. And then secondly is actually using the AI to help humans optimize their day to day. And so the concept of what's called adaptive AI and the idea there is that you can come into Brain one, you could download a dementia prevention protocol. It could be women's health, whatever it might be, and you could follow that for a period of time and then we could understand a baseline of your data. And that could be based on biometrics on biomarkers. It could be based on. We're actually doing some interesting stuff with voice recordings. And what we've seen is correlations of heart rate, variability out of voice, all of these different types of modalities that then the adaptive AI would adapt a protocol based on that data and ultimately adapt and personalize it for you, Andrea, based on all the data processing, basically.
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Andrea Samadi
What are you tracking mostly@brain.1? And I went there, so I went there and I put my name in because I'd love to, to get a protocol for brain health for sure. You know, so. So is it coming? Is it?
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Thorin Stephens
Yeah. So we're, we're currently live with a number of brain practitioners, so we've really gone B2B. So that's what we've, we've focused on from a business perspective. But we do have a wait list and I'd be happy to put you to the front of the list. And we could work on a brain protocol together.
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Andrea Samadi
Oh, that would be awesome. I would love that. Thank you.
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Thorin Stephens
Yeah. But relative to what we track, I mean, it's really a multimodal model. So we started off with clinical assessments and then we added in biometrics. So we have over 300 biometrics today in the system. And then we went to biomarkers. And so now you can come to Brain one and you can upload a medical test. It could be a wavy EEG as an example. And then we, anonymize it, by the way, and then it actually spits back a, a standardized, essentially report based on that data. BCIs are very, very interesting. EEG as a subset of BCI. Then where we're going are these. The concept of what's called multiomics, Are you familiar with that, Andrea?
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Andrea Samadi
No, I don't know.
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Thorin Stephens
That's right. We talk about genomics as again, sequencing of the human genome, and that's been pretty well productized. Multiomics is the next step, going all the way to the proteome. So you have what's called proteomics, which is the expression of your DN through RNA to proteins, and then in between you have epigenetics, or what's called the epigenome, and then the transcriptome and even the metabolome. And so these are just essentially large. Think of it as a, it's almost like a database of your genetic material, your protein expression, your RNA transcripts, essentially. And it's really the most detailed view of your biology at the end of the day. And so that's where we're going. We're not quite there yet, but that's on the roadmap.
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Andrea Samadi
Okay, this is, this is really exciting. So I heard you talk about some of the wearables that you're compatible with. So I wear whoop. Is, Is, are you compatible with Whoop?
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Thorin Stephens
Or so I, I don't actually love whoop. I would say again, it depends on my training. So normally I'll have an or. So I sleep with an aura ring. And that's because it's the least invasive and lowest EMFs. But then I also will do activity with the Garmin. So usually I'm wearing my Garmin, but when I was really doing Ironmans and triathlons, Garmin was it. And it also has the highest resolution my day to day. I might use an Apple watch or I may use a whoop, you know, depending. So those are probably the top, you know, four that I use on a regular basis.
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Andrea Samadi
Okay, sounds good. And so, so when someone wants to come to Brain dot one, so they're like, hey, they're, they're, they're measuring things. And I was actually talking with one of my friends like a couple hours ago and she was saying, you know, I'm these symptoms and, and I said, have you ever taken your blood and sent it in to somebody to look at it and give you their thoughts on it? So that would be a part of this, right? You could upload your, your blood tests, your biomarkers. Right.
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Thorin Stephens
Oh, 100%. Yeah, we, you know, we haven't based our business around that. There's a lot of companies that are now doing this. You have the function healths of the world, rhythm health. There's really, you know, it's been pretty well commoditized, but we will partner with those types of organizations essentially and then make that as easy as possible for the human to do exactly what you're talking about. There's what's called the Tasso. Have you seen the Tasso? That's like the, it's a device, it goes on the arm and it's, it's pretty non invasive, although you can get some scarring. But it basically just does a capillary based blood draw out of your arm essentially. And you can do that at home, you send it in and then you get the results. And you know, that's been again, pretty well productized. So the good news is a lot of these things, you don't need to go into a quest or a, you know, labcorp to get the data. You can do it from home. There's pros and cons of that though, you know, depending on the types of type of blood and the biomarkers you're looking for. But you know, a lot of these things again have been commoditized and you don't even need to leave your house anymore.
- [27:28]
Andrea Samadi
You're giving me such an overview of like advancement. I haven't, I haven't heard of some of these. I know the glucose monitor. I didn't know we could take our blood at home. So this is amazing. Thank you.
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Thorin Stephens
Oh yeah, 100%. And yeah, there's another test we use, one's called Brain Span and that's an example. It's a finger prick and you get six blood brain related biomarkers. So it's exciting. I think we also really try to edge on the side of affordability and accessibility. And so a lot of these things, the diagnostics can definitely get expensive. But relative to your brain routine, a lot of these things you can also do for free. And you know, an example of your autonomic or parasympathetic regulation could be something like breath work or cold plunging. And that's also another part of my regimen. Usually do it maybe twice a week. We'll do it here in the rivers in Colorado. But you know, that would be another example of something that you can basically do at home in a cold shower for free.
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Andrea Samadi
The cold shower is hard for me.
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Thorin Stephens
Yeah, it's actually very hard for me too. I can, yeah. Yeah, I can go in the river or I can go into a cold plunge, like, no problem. But the cold shower is, is, is pretty brutal.
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Andrea Samadi
Yeah, really hard. I've tried everything. I can barely get to three minutes. It's like.
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Thorin Stephens
Yeah, it's not bad, depending on the temperature. Yeah, I, I was with a buddy in, in Venice not too long ago and he was doing the, the bowl with ice. So if you can't do like a full cold plunge, you, you know, and so there you're holding your breath and then putting your face underwater. And I found that to be somewhat effective. Not quite as effective as full body, of course, but yeah, pretty cool.
- [29:06]
Andrea Samadi
Wow, this is eye opening. So tell me a little bit more about where you see people are like, you know, not everybody measures their data. So what are some, you know, maybe some misconceptions that you'd like to share or help people to understand with what you're doing?
- [29:25]
Thorin Stephens
Yeah, I think the measurement piece is important, but it's also important to not over index and get too obsessive. You know, I was, I was talking to a, a client earlier today and she mentioned, you know, every time she looks at her whoop, it says the same thing. And that's actually, I, I also think a limitation of whoop is that it'll tell you what's wrong. Your HRV is down 25. It doesn't tell you how to fix it. You know, and so that is huge.
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Andrea Samadi
That is huge. Like, and, and I can just give you an ex almost two years it me you're over training and not getting enough sleep and I'm like, how do I fix this?
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Thorin Stephens
Right.
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Andrea Samadi
Honestly, I had no idea.
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Thorin Stephens
Yeah, no, it's. You're not alone. And we hear this all the time. And that's actually one of the kind of the core tenants of Brain One is behavioral change. And so, you know, not just so taking in the data is one thing and that's helpful. You know, back to your initial question. But, you know, the biggest challenge is not really the measurement. It's actually the, you know, getting the action done in the, in the human side, you know, and I, my, my business background, I've, I did a bunch of private equity work and we'd buy companies and I'd come in and I would basically rebuild the technology or integrate it and so forth. And what I saw was that technology was never the problem. It was the human behavior. You know, it's the humans behind. And it's so hard to teach someone to do one thing, let alone to do a Full protocol. You know, getting up in the morning and getting direct sunlight or drinking two glasses of water or whatever it might be. It's, you know, it's a challenge. And so that's where we've seen the most successful models, using things like cognitive behavioral therapy, where you have cue and rewards and you're really incentivizing and educating a person to get the thing done. But we also find often in our types of protocols, people are very interested, you know, in improving their health. So our retention, our adherence is generally quite high.
- [31:21]
Andrea Samadi
I think everybody wants to feel better, right? I think we just don't know how.
- [31:26]
Thorin Stephens
Sure. Yeah. No, I mean, you're not, you're not taught, you know, we're. We're barely taught nutrition in schools alongside our doctors. You know, our doctors get, you know, like our primary care. I mean, how many days of nutrition do they learn in medical school? Not many. I mean, I've heard as few as, like, you know, a handful. So it's, it's very, very unfortunate. And then let alone things like nervous system regulation, you know, we're not really. Maybe in high school you're taught about the nervous system, you know, on the basics, maybe in college, depending on what you studied. But, yeah, it's a, you know, it's a bit of a challenge. And that's why you're seeing, you know, this new movement of health. And I really believe the idea of the human health protocol is really the future. And, you know, you see that in other books. Huberman, his latest book was called Protocols. You know, we'd. We launched a year before you know, he even published his book. But, but, you know, my background, again, coming from molecular biology and then, you know, Ironmans and so forth, that's what we would follow. You know, whether you're sequencing DNA or you're, you know, optimizing for a Ironman distance triathlon, you're following a protocol. It's just a series of steps. And the data is helpful because then it shows you if you're improving or not. That was one of my, you know, big aha moments. And this is back when we had the big chunky Garmins, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago now, probably. And, and just using things like this was even before it was just heart rate basically, back then, before HRV or resting heart rate or all these, like, metrics we now get out of the box. But I was able to utilize heart rate and then, see, I could attenuate my lactic threshold, going stronger, longer, faster. And so I could Optimize my biology essentially, through the data. And I'm a little bit of anomaly, you know, like you. You mentioned you're very measured, I think of measurement too, you know, again, as a spectrum. And you got people over here like Brian Johnson, who's measuring literally every iota of his being, which is okay, you know, But I also believe it shouldn't, you know, impede your quality of life and, you know, the time that you spend outdoors or with your family or doing the things that you love. So while I don't drink a lot of alcohol, I'll have a glass of wine occasionally, or I don't, you know, try to really have zero sugar. I'll have, you know, ice cream with my wife or whatever it might be. So I think it's important to really allow yourself a little bit of slack and not let the data override everything, but still be measured.
- [33:45]
Andrea Samadi
It's true. It's true. We could get crazy with it all. And I do. I sometimes do. I cut everything out and the numbers are great, but honestly, how much fun am I having?
- [33:59]
Thorin Stephens
Well, yeah, and that's it. It's quality of life. If you're not enjoying what you're doing, whether it's work or whether it's your regimen or your routine or your protocol, you know, all these things are really important. So trying to find that joy, which is not always easy, but, you know, that's one of the secrets, definitely.
- [34:15]
Andrea Samadi
So. So this is cool. So your audience, who are you targeting for this? Like, I saw you and I thought, I. I need to know what this is. I want to talk with you. So it. Elite athletes, executive people like me that just want to feel better, who you're all of.
- [34:32]
Thorin Stephens
All of the above. Yeah, we. We have a partnership with an amazing NFL super bowl champion. His name's Malik Jackson. Very incredible athlete and just amazing human. He's an example of someone that we're working with, certainly executives. I live here in Colorado, so we do a lot of peak performance where we're just, you know, uphilling and climbing mountains on a regular basis. And so again, a lot of these things like peptides and measure, and a lot of this now is going mainstream, we've been doing for decades in some instances. So that's been a big part of our core audience. And then I'd say more generally, people interested in longevity, that kind of functional medicine approach, the whole human. How do you really optimize your life across these different modalities to live the best life that you possibly can?
- [35:24]
Andrea Samadi
Love it I love what you've created here, Thorin. This is amazing.
- [35:29]
Thorin Stephens
Yeah, I appreciate it, Andrea, Appreciate your question.
- [35:31]
Andrea Samadi
Oh, for sure. So, like, fast forward 10 years, you did kind of give us the vision. So the vision is that, that we all are tapped into your system, that we know our protocols and you know, we, we make them a part of our life because we know that we're going to measure and we're going to see improvements. Would you say that your vision would be that we all improve somehow with a protocol or. Tell me what you're.
- [35:57]
Thorin Stephens
Yeah, I mean, 100. I think, you know, I'd love to give away my, you know, vision is to reach a billion humans, but give away, you know, hundreds of millions of these protocols for free and just have people have at least a basic framework to follow to avoid dementia. Our grandparents, our parents, you know, they all should, you know, our children to some degree, but, you know, they, they should all be following some type of, of framework around that. So that's definitely one of the visions. I think the, you know, the concept of again, your gene expression being dependent on your environment is very interesting to me. And you know, that idea that you can really again, improve your biology and your health based on the things that you do, you know, which makes sense. But I think as we get more and more data around this, it's going to be very interesting and very exciting.
- [36:44]
Andrea Samadi
I'm going to follow you for sure because this is right up my lane and this is why I do the podcast, honestly. It's to, you know, hear what's new and see how can we help people. And it's important for me as well that my podcast doesn't have ads. The whole give back is why I do, you know, it's cool to hear that that's your vision as well.
- [37:05]
Thorin Stephens
Oh, 100%. Yeah. It has to be greater, you know, I think than ourselves. And that's really always been my, my mission and vision.
- [37:15]
Andrea Samadi
So. Thorin, you know, what have I missed? I've, you know, really asked you a lot from, from listening to your stuff. I didn't, I didn't talk about Ecuador. Although that's like really fascinating to go listen to those podcasts about your plant and just understanding that, like when I listened to that, I thought it was, was really neat that, you know, we can change our brain with different modalities and, and you went that way. But then you also talked about how that we could with prayer or meditation. There's lots of different ways to access consciousness and 100. Yeah, I thought that was Amazing.
- [37:54]
Thorin Stephens
Really neat. Oh, thank you. Yeah. So the story behind that. I was 15 in the upper Amazon of Ecuador and I drank huachuma, which is also called San Pedro, which is a psychedelic cactus, mescaline, based similar to peyote here in North America. And that was my first foray into plant medicines. And then, since then, I've had a very deep practice in various plant medicines, ranging from the Native American church and peyote to the jungles of Peru and Brazil and whatnot. And I think of these as tools to tune consciousness. And, you know, the irony of, of these modalities and these types of medicines is that you also realize you don't need them at all. You know, through breath and also through meditation and prayer, you can reach these, you know, essentially states of consciousness as well. I consider psychedelics to be a catalyst to get you there sooner. But, yeah, very, very fascinating.
- [38:50]
Andrea Samadi
Yeah, no, I love that. So have I missed anything? Is there anything that, that you think that was important that I. Other than the whole Ecuador thing? I thought I've got a.
- [39:00]
Thorin Stephens
No, I think, yeah, that all sounds great. You know, just. Again, just the, the feeling of empowerment, you know, for your audience that people like. While you, you know, might have a genetic predisposition, you also have power in your behavior, in the behavioral changes you make, the people you surround yourself with. I'm a big believer in that. But all these things impact your biology and could be your mental health, your physical health, and you do have some, you know, ability to regulate that. So I guess, you know, that might be a prominent message would be the empowerment that we have to, you know, really help improve our lives, our families and so forth.
- [39:36]
Andrea Samadi
Because I believe, and I think you believe that we can change our brain, right? That.
- [39:40]
Thorin Stephens
Oh, 100%, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, there's data around that, you know, like through language or learning an instrument or even dance into your old age, you know, you can continue to, you know, what, what's called neuroplasticity. You can continue to rebuild different neural connections. And again, that goes into your later stages of life. So instruments are a really good example. I'm also a musician, but that idea, through learning a new instrument that you can rebuild those neural pathways. It's really fascinating.
- [40:11]
Andrea Samadi
Oh, it is. Thorin, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today.
- [40:16]
Thorin Stephens
Such a pleasure. Thank you, Andrew.
- [40:18]
Andrea Samadi
You know, for people who want to learn more, I did put your LinkedIn, your Instagram and the website. So would you say people could just go there and join the wait list if they want to get into 100%.
- [40:30]
Thorin Stephens
Yep. Brain1. And we're also working on a new product called Peptides1 for people looking for safe information on Peptides. But yeah, you know they can definitely come and join the wait list and mention your name and we'll put them to the front.
- [40:46]
Andrea Samadi
Oh, sounds good. And I look forward to getting my protocol and I'll do a follow up to this and I'll tie it to get my protocol.
- [40:52]
Thorin Stephens
Let's do it.
- [40:53]
Andrea Samadi
Thank you.
- [40:54]
Thorin Stephens
Thank you so much, so much.
- [40:58]
Andrea Samadi
Some final thoughts Thor and Stevens challenged me to think differently about what it truly means to take ownership of our health. For many of us, the journey begins with awareness. For me, it started when I began tracking my recovery and strain with a wearable device, and that data sparked deeper questions about my own protocols, how I sleep, how I recover, how I regulate stress, and how small daily behaviors compound over time. I continue to wake up around 4am, use an infrared sauna as a part of my recovery routine, practice meditation. I incorporate red light therapy and thoughtfully experiment with supplements. But what this conversation reinforced for me is something even deeper than this. Optimization is not about obsession, it's about alignment. When I discovered Dr. Dan Siegel's Wheel of Awareness meditation a few years ago, I realized that connection to self and to others is as essential as any biomarker that we track. Numbers matter, but meaning matters more. And if you're listening and wondering where to begin, the most powerful takeaway from today's conversation is Change doesn't require an overhaul, it requires a micro shift. Drink more water, improve sleep by 15 minutes, take a daily walk, reduce one inflammatory habit. Small adjustments repeated consistently become transformation. And equally important, if your pursuit of optimization begins to reduce your joy, pause for a minute, recalibrate. Performance without well being is not progress. And if you'd like to explore your own personalized protocol, just visit Brain One and join their wait list. Like I'm doing. I'll be sharing my experience once I reach receive my own AI design protocol based on my own biomarkers. And next week we continue our season 15 review, revisiting past conversations to understand how these foundational brain systems connect. Because when the systems align, results follow. We'll see you next week. If you're enjoying the Neuroscience meets social and Emotional Learning podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll stay up to date with our new episodes. While you're there, please feel free to give us a review or a five star rating as it helps others find us. For more information on our programs, books and tools for schools and the workplace. Visit us at www. AchieveIt360.Com.